the question is really i think for obama, you know. i think -- he will have a deal available to him to avoid going over the fiscal cliff, i think, in exchange for raising rates a bit. the question is, is it a good enough deal or does he just say it's not a good enough deal, i can get a better deal by going over the cliff and i prefer to do that? because you guys haven't moved toward me enough. >> david, the sentiment noam expressed is the same we heard from tim geithner a few days ago. we've had a number of congressmen on this show who have said the same thing. it does seem at least that the sentiment may be shifting from, you know, two or three weeks ago absolutely, no way, not going to go over the cliff, and now you have a lot of folks who are starting to say, hey, you know what, we might go over the cliff. >> absolutely. there's several leading democrats who are sort of pushing the white house to do just that. now, the white house's line is we don't want that. the president has spent this time in the past two weeks meeting with cons